career but most recently it seems that there is a real momentum towards that not just in our land but also but in much of around the western world why do you think that is why i think at this stage the vast majority of people in the western world have worked. the criminalization of cannabis users is not working and in our system is that there are up to two hundred fifty thousand people who use cannabis every year there are one hundred thousand people who have ended up with a criminal record for possession as a result of this and at this stage a thousand people have worked out that the current strategy is not working it's leaving money in the hands of the criminals and it's actually making cannabis a far more dangerous substance now i know that you recently introduced the bill on the cannabis legalization to the dole the irish parliament and some of your fellow m.p.'s have been pretty skeptical some are even openly critical of such a proposal with all the aware and those that you mentioned earlier why do you think

there is still such a strong opposition to this move. well i suppose the reality is that the vast majority of the members of our dollar the members of our parliament appear to be opposed to this legislation and i would suggest that the reason why they would be opposed is that they are afraid as being seen as soft on drugs somehow and they're not being as hardline as maybe they expect. for them to be and be at this stage it's becoming clear to me that the general public i've actually moved on on this issue you will cash what they call our paper of record here in this country the irish times you read the articles that have been written about this proposed legislation anderson quite clear from the comments that should be made hundreds of them that it seems that the irish public of walking up to the fact that the war on cannabis has failed and that there needs to be an older strategy i know that people who oppose the criminalization of cannabis sometimes

happen to be smokers sometime happen to be consumers of hard liquor and i think by now it's not even debated that the how think locations of using both tobacco and alcohol are much more detrimental both on personal level and for national health care systems but at the same time you can't really claim that cannabis is good for your health so i wonder can your really justified you know be decriminalised one unhealthy substance by claiming that you know the rest is what i think the first thing we have to do is actually near the lie that has been put out there by some people that actually cannabis is more harmful than tobacco and alcohol and we had it on our national media over the last couple of weeks but it is quite clear according to the world health organization that it is less harmful. to facal but of course everything is harmful in the wrong hands. is harmful in the wrong hands and

in the right hands it means you can name a jumper which you wouldn't ban nation needed. on the basis that some people might misuse them now there are many myths out there about cannabis and one of them is this incorrect link to schizophrenia and i think the best way to knock that mitt is to look at great britain and its cannabis use each rates between one nine hundred seventy two and two thousand and two during that period the amount of people use cannabis in great britain increased four fold in the general population indoors under eighteen years of age is actually increased eighteen for it if the studies that have been pushed out there attempting to link schizophrenia with cannabis war correct then we would have seen a twenty seven percent increase in schizophrenia in great britain over that period when in fact studies have quite clearly shown that it has stayed the same and actually at best there has been a reduction in the number of people with schizophrenia supporters of cannabis

legalization have long insisted that such a move would reduce the cost of maintaining law enforcement and criminal justice but i think most recently they have been shifting to a different sort of argument and that is that it would allow not only to save money but also make money and in ireland these days i guess any money making opportunity would be very appealing cannabis offer a way out of austerity will look at obviously in itself it's not going to be a whale of a star issue for an economy like ours and worth about two hundred billion euros it's really going to change the position massively borscht there are obvious financial gain it's a story recently that came out of israel suggested that it would actually save that country and make that country up to four hundred fifty million american dollars and if you compare that to ireland we actually have twice the usage rates that they have in israel we have about half the population so i don't think it would be

unreasonable to suggest that would be worth about three hundred million euros to the economy irish. every year there are savings to the criminal justice system to the fact that there are eight thousand people every year in ireland dragged before the courts and this costs an awful lot of money there is also the fact that those one hundred thousand people who have a criminal record currently are actually inhibits fish from getting involved in gratian economic activity and the reason behind that is because once you have a criminal record for possession of cannabis you are no longer allowed to walk in a really decent job and even if legalization was to free those one hundred thousand people up to produce an extra one thousand euros a year for the economy that is worth one hundred million euros and so my figure of three hundred million actually i think it is very conservative bush it's better to be careful on this road than being accused of exaggerating down the line but if you look at the bill that proposed so far most of the matters that you suggest a family deal with personal or communal years of cannabis you are not at this.

large scale commercial cultivation and i wonder why restrain yourself with partial decriminalization because we fear all the time that ireland needs growth why not facilitate that through the growth of cannabis well i actually think you're incorrect and i think you've misinterpreted. because my calls for total legalization allow for the fact that many people would like to grow their own or also people would like to buy it from a not for profit organization such as a kind of a social club like they have set up in barcelona which we have also allowed for their commercial sector we have commercial licenses we have a retail licenses and let's say just from a practical point of view if my bill was passed it would mean in the morning that a person who wants to use cannabis could go into a shop to purchase it they could go into a coffee shop to purchase it they can possess up to one ounce of cannabis them says

if they don't have a license to grow which turner. they would have the option of growling at them says now many people probably think that if it's legal they would grow at themselves but i think all we need to do is look at the out called markers easy is not rocket science to make alcohol but the fast majority of people don't even in a country like ours and which i believe has a problem and the reason why they don't want is because of convenience and i think you would see something very similar in the cannabis markers what is saving their belief would occur is as a result of wash professor david milch from the drugs advisory commission in great britain said he estimates that alcohol use each would reduce by twenty five percent if cannabis was legalized in ireland the stat cyrus follows out of college costs this economy of to three point four billion euros every year if we reduce alcohol in this country by

a quarter it wouldn't be unrealistic to say there's another seven to eight hundred million euros that we can actually use for a youth unemployment to help the edge early who can't get a decent health service at the moment and it could be spent in the taxed economy as opposed to leaving us with criminals and people who were very dangerous you just mentioned alcoholic beverages and ireland has quite a few brands that how people relax and i know that the sales of. creasing all over the world especially in the american market the same is happening with the sales of irish beer would you like arlen to be a no no haven famous for your brand of cannabis while they i wouldn't particularly want to contribute to be known for that bush has sadly at the moment is very well known for a far more harmful drug so i can't see how we should make it any worse and than the current situation but my ambition on this isn't that it will end up with

a large scale export i. i would like to see from an environmental perspective anywhere that we apply the proximity principle we and we use it as close as possible in the same place because the idea that it ends up like out of college where you have massive advertising etc that would really turn me off and in my they're serious impositions when it comes to advertising and cannabis and in particular we have made that decision not to allow it to be advertised with support even though all the government will probably force against this are actually balking at the idea of taking the advertisement of a far more harmful drug out of college sports at the moment because they say sports can't afford it is ironic and you touch upon a very interesting phenomenon that is taking place in ireland these days you mention a star and see it before and i know that people because they're so constrained for money saving on clothing communication transport but as you pointed out the

consumption of alcohol is increasing in ireland and isn't that a reason ultimately to shelf your proposal for a little while and wait until social conditions have been better you know the rates of unemployment the rates of depression go down because you know that people turn to these substances to escape the harsh reality if we've seen that with alcohol why don't you think that's going to happen to cannabis well as i've already said on many occasions out is a far more harmful drug than cannabis and if it was a case that cannabis didn't exist that people currently didn't use this or that it wasn't here then your argument would be stronger but the reality is here and he's here to stay is he's not going to disappear off this planet and we have a choice we either allow the criminals to be the vendors or we allow the. economy to be the vendors bashes the decision that we have to make at the moment i knew all

i would prefer for this morning to go to war health service. then the type of people who would shoot you over this issue but i think the problem both with alcohol and other sorts of substances is moderation you know even alcohol in itself is not a problem we all know about drinking a glass of wine a day and being good for your heart but the problem is of course that in the time of social upheaval at the time of economic hardship people have difficulty south regulating and south moderating so. why don't you think that something like this could happen because you're adding one more substance to the. substances that. i actually don't believe were adding any new substance as i've already said is already out there and as professor david north has said he believes would reduce by twenty five percent so i believe we would see a society gain but the results of the other important part the point at the moment when people buy cannabis in this country and in most countries around the world

they do not know how strong it is they don't know what the percentage of t.h.c. to c.b.d. is which is very important because one is a psychotic and the older is an anti-psychotic and currently in the republic of ireland people are actually mixing cannabis with other substances to increase its weight which is turning this into a very very kyra synergetic substance and in some cases they're mixing it with psychiatric drugs so if it was legalized not only would it take take away from the black economy it would also make it infinitely safer because people would know what they were using exactly what they were using mr flanagan to have to take a short break now but when we come back the proponents of cannabis legalization claim that it may provide a much needed boost economic boost but it is a stereotype of really the best of possibly the worst time to attempt such a move that's coming up in a few moments on worlds apart. for

great productivity gain our campaign preserves a dollar a day to do any of the ten or twelve hours of work per day they're the most productive workers in america are the prison population and the policymakers in washington want to turn the whole population into a prison population and then they can say look this is so productive willy panamint dollar a bit delusional these license plates the get the stamp oh there's a don't tell marketing getting people to believe in a lot of tickets and go to the casinos and blow their wad of cash they're so productive. this immediately though so we need to. close the scene potions to cure the play your part of the musical. push use that no one is there still with the guests they deserve answers from it's all on politics only on our t.v. .

plug right along the seems to lead the search triplets and i predict the turkey leg on our reporters whether lenin's the lead lead slug. in the pledge to live or take the lead very hard to make up the list again along here is a club that has sex with the perfect their lives in a play.

lists. lists leg lifts about. please. please. please. margie dot com is launching a special project to mark the appalling scale of violence in iraq. we want you to

know. there's a media leave us so we leave that maybe. i will see push to secure. your party there's a goal. for shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve. thank you watching our team coming to live from the russian capital and us promise we're following the spectacular journey of the olympic torch which has now reached the international space station you're looking at live pictures there and our correspondent lizzie france is following this let's now turn to her limbs and do talk us through what's happening. well the soyuz has just joshing at the international space station and as you're seeing right now i think the new clue is disembarking they hatch has just opened and one crew member and the torch if you

see i would be the first to make it out now of course the crews are very each other it's very exciting where everyone sort of people very bonded i'm very excited to see this sort of crazy very quick trip just drive our you know of course the ice i'm very proud of the place because it's got three soyuz craft that are dogged out it like nine crew members and with the end of fortune and the force of the torch so it's very exciting that it's been such a success and of course as you can see there's no flame on the torch it cannot be the lids of course in space and so it is it is just the torch in itself so it's very exciting to see this actually happen live and a lot of smiling faces around here of course the family members are also being broadcast from baikonur of course they're very relieved to see their loved ones arrive safely now of course the big event after this is saturday when the torch will make history by going on a spacewalk it will be tethered to two two cosmonauts before as to spend several

hours in outer space of course we'll be bringing you that live here on our show you can follow us on twitter one mobile devices on television and we will be bringing you this live on saturday but for now everyone is just very excited that we started early this morning by our norcross now and it was such excess. of course there are kilometers actually about to be heard so here i mission control if you're in moscow and it's been a success and the video is just amazing to watch it is absolutely amazing and in fact these are historic moments there that we were just a looking at you know how this towards reach the eyes says and just to remind our viewers that indeed on saturday we'll be showing live of the spacewalk and because bringing the torch to the eyes says is not enough of course and it will be walking there in space it will get the photographs and live coverage of this for now that lindsay thank you so much for bringing us this coverage of the very very spectacular and remarkable moments there well and indeed it was

a remarkable scene that we've just seen and following the olympic torch a space odyssey on our t.v. and we'll be bringing you the story spacewalk as i mentioned earlier on saturday right now though martin andrews give us some background on the torch is voyage to the ice. the mechanical capture and contact and capture confirmed docking confirmed for twenty seven am central time and now the crew and symbol of the upcoming winter games have met on the international space station cosmonauts all i cut off and so i go to sun scheme will take the modified torch on a space walk roughly four hundred kilometers above fully docked with the current crew this will only be the second time in the isis history that three soyuz spacecraft and nine crew members have been aboard the la complex at the same time millions will watch as the torch makes history safety and physics mean they carved

like the torch in space the design has also been changed so it can't fly away with it it wouldn't make much sense everyone knows there can be no flame in outer space as nothing burns there and it doesn't make sense to fake it after circling the planet several times the torch will come back to earth with the three returning crew members on the eleventh of november to continue its record breaking relate with the world's attention on this historical moment it's a nervous time for everyone involved we only need to prepare psychologically because you can't just before miss work mechanical you or some routine job after all we are dealing with a symbol what the symbol of it is always good to see countries working together for the better of everybody on the planet so in a small way i think it's great that we are in this similar to the international space station which is another presentation of international cooperation over the

coming weeks thousands of torchbearers will join the olympics we like across sixty five thousand kilometers of terrain covering these three regions of russia once complete it will be the longest really in the history of the winter olympics it's what will come in next in the opening ceremony of the games in sochi. well the black sea. org in the meantime the olympic torch meets the sparkle. you really we're. a moment promises to be truly out of this world most of them on t.v. but you know after just a few moments we can go back to those live pictures at the international space station where the olympic torch has just reached it well you see cosmonauts and astronauts gathered there they're all in a very jubilant mood there because in fact it is a historic moment for the olympic torch at the i assess we here on our team continue to follow the torch a spectacular journey before it gets to sochi the whole city of the olympic games

in saburo and you know just bringing the olympic torch to space isn't enough of course because what we are looking forward to here is of course saturday one cosmonauts car of answer gear is on ski will be aboard the station who have been aboard the station since september they will be making a spacewalk during which they will display and photograph the torch outside the our coast so do stay with us for that coverage if you can because that would happen live and we will be showing you i'm sure they will be spectacular pictures coming out of space for you and in fact very unique and a story so do stay with us here on r.t. .

it would take a look at some other stories and a nuclear cleanup team in fukushima is preparing to move the power plants fuel rods to a safer location it's the most hazardous undertaking add the japanese facility says it was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami two and a half years ago i was here she has the latest. extracting these rods from the balls is a really hard task because each one of them called ways of more than three hundred kilograms and they could not even hit each other this would cause a nuclear chain reaction not only these pools are crippled but the machinery the automated machinery doesn't work as well so every rod has to be extracted from the pool manually the typical company running the fukushima clear up process and the japanese government are now in a vicious cycle situation because on the one hand they need to remove these fuel rods they are contaminating the water as has been reported in the waters of the fukushima nuclear power plant and on the other hand of course this is a very risky venture because they have to literally extract every rod and there's

more than a thousand of them and each rod has to be extracted manually we also managed to take a peek inside the no go zone in other areas and you know what what shocked me the most that surprised me the most and i'm saying that by my experiences of travelling to the explosions on each of the novel that in the fukushima area the towns which are just close to the station ten fifteen kilometers away from the station they have been reopened for residents literally saw people rebuilding their houses in this area in case anything happens these people would have to be removed evacuated again and or putting themselves under a very serious risk well in fact in the fukushima region itself there are several n.g.o.s who did not believe the government and the tepco organization in their measurements or the radiation levels the one which struck me the most and we talked with them yesterday the movement called the mothers of fukushima these are ordinary women who are afraid for the safety and health of their children they bought three meters which the cheapest of them costs around a thousand u.s.

dollars and they are just but trawling the areas taking their own measurements and sending them to the government but the government as they say is doing nothing it is not considering the radiation measurements as if they are trying to play down the scale of the things happening even in tokyo in front of the industrial ministry there is a peek at that there is a protest happening for already eight hundred days with the people there protesting against nuclear energy and the actions of the government and the tepco so you can see how serious the rhetoric of the anti-nuclear movement is now in japan even though they say that their voice is being often silenced by those that. founder and host of a nuked radio says the engineers are trying to do the impossible while putting public safety at risk the more i study this problem in fact i've been up all night reading i haven't even gone to sleep. the more that i look into this i don't know how japan thinks to pull this off the pictures that have been released go

at the amount of damage that the racks in the pool have sustained there's no way that they're going to be able to hold those assemblies out. and do it without bumping into other stings and that's where the danger is the other problem is we have three maltin cores that we don't even know where they are and it's really surprising that there isn't a single expert that has called for ground penetrating radar in order to identify where these quarters are so that that problem can also be addressed. and more news here out from all of us here in r.t. at the top of the hour to say this. exactly what happened that day i don't know but a woman i killed. piers later is when i got arrested for. for a crime i did not do. we have numerous cases where police officers lie about polygraph results. innocent people to confess the police officers don't beat people

anymore i mean it just doesn't happen really. in the course of interrogation why because there's been this is like meant no because the psychological techniques are more effective in obtaining confessions than physical abuse and they were off taking they could do what they wanted they could say what they wanted and there was no evidence of what they did or what they said. margy dot com is launching a special project to mark the appalling scale of violence in iraq. we want you to

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but. i didn't know that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our craft several we've been hydrangea why a handful of transnational corporations will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one school class i'm tom are going to get on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem trucks rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing not to find

a job ready to join the movement then walk a bit of. drama as they're trying to be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. the faces changing the world lights never. full picture of today's news. on demand from around the globe. brokenly. sure. to build. anything mission to teach music. this

is. only. the fallout from mass surveillance revelations forces you. to make it a story televised public appearance will look at what to expect. fun facts about guantanamo apparently the life of an. little more than. one of the . ten thousand dollars. we reported from the detention camp on what keeps the guards busy while a former inmate describes the tailor made torture methods used to break the prisoners. and the high altitude handover the sochi olympic torch reaches the after historic launch from the baikonur cosmodrome. let's take a look at the live pictures there and the atmosphere.